■ CHINA
Ex-soldiers riot at schools
About 2,000 former soldiers rioted in three cities last week over poor conditions in railway vocational schools where they were retraining, smashing equipment and setting fires, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said in Hong Kong yesterday. Nearly 1,000 vandalized their school in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, and clashed with hundreds of police, leading to 20 people getting injured and five arrests. Similar riots occurred in Baoji, Shaanxi Province, and Wuhan in Hubei Province, on the same day, Sept. 3, the center said. An official at the Baoji school would only say: "Everything has returned to normal."
■ INDIA
Engineers suspended
Three engineers have been suspended for negligence after a highway overpass collapsed in Hyderabad, killing two people and injuring nine, the Press Trust of India news agency said. The overpass was under construction when it collapsed on Sunday night, crushing vehicles and pedestrians taking shelter from heavy rain. The state's chief minister has ordered a panel of independent experts to investigate the accident.
■ VIETNAM
Mass grave uncovered
A mass grave containing the remains of communist soldiers killed in the Vietnam War has been found in Quang Tri Province, an official said yesterday. Authorities believe the grave may contain the remains of several hundred men, said the head of Gio Linh district military command. So far six sets of remains have been found. They are believed to be those of commandos killed while attacking a South Vietnamese military station. The remains were discovered after officials were tipped off by soldiers who fought in the battle.
■ CHINA
Chicken used as taster
Think a bottle of mineral water might have poisoned you? Then test it on a chicken. One family on Hainan island had just that idea when one of them started vomiting blood after drinking a bottle of water, the Beijing News said. They fed the chicken the rest of the water to see what would happen, the newspaper said. "The result was the chicken died within a minute," it said, showing a picture of a man holding a plastic bottle squatting over the bird's crumpled body.
■ MALAYSIA
Cop caught purse-snatching
A man who snatched a woman's handbag and was caught by bystanders in Perak state on Monday turned out to be an off-duty policeman, a police official said yesterday. A group of men chased the suspect after hearing a woman's cries for help.
■ IRAQ
Captors post Web ultimatum
The captors of a German man in Iraq, whose mother was freed in July, threatened to kill him if Berlin does not withdraw its troops from Afghanistan within 10 days, a video posted on the Internet showed yesterday. "We give the German government another 10 days to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, otherwise we'll slit [his] throat like a lamb," a spokesman for the "The Arrows of Righteousness Brigades" says in the video. The date of the ultimatum remained unclear. The video shows Sinan Krause, 20, and his mother Hannelore, and also announces her release "for having converted to Islam."
■ ZIMBABWE
Archbishop Ncube resigns
Archbishop Pius Ncube has resigned from his post in the Zimbabwean city of Bulawayo after a state-run newspaper accused him of adultery, a priest from the archdiocese and the Vatican said yesterday. Pope Benedict XVI "accepted the renunciation of pastoral leadership in the archdiocese of Bulawayo," a statement released in Vatican City said. Zimbabwe state television quoted Bulawayo priest Father Frederick Chiromba as saying that the resignation was tendered to the pope by Ncube. Ncube has been archbishop since 1998 and is one of the most outspoken critics of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
■ SPAIN
Crowd flocks to Dalai Lama
More than 10,000 people turned out on Monday for a speech by the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, organizers said. Participants paid 20 euros (US$27.50) to listen to a speech by the 72-year-old Buddhist on "The Art of Happiness" at Barcelona's Palau Sant Jordi. "In the animal world there are fights but in general they live in peace. But man does not, we are dissatisfied, we want more and more, and that generates stress," the Nobel laureate told the gathering. "If we are full of annoyance, we do not sleep, while positive emotions, like love or compassion, not only do they bring to us peace but they are also good for our health," he added in comments broadcast on Spanish radio. The Dalai Lama arrived in Spain on Sunday for a three-day visit.
■ GERMANY
Town ditches traffic lights
A town council in the western town of Bohmte has decided the best way of improving road safety is to remove all traffic lights and stop signs downtown. From today, all traffic controls will disappear from the center of town to try to reduce accidents and make life easier for pedestrians. In an area used by 13,500 cars every day, drivers and pedestrians will enjoy equal right of way, mayor Klaus Goedejohann said. The idea of removing signs to improve road safety, called "Shared Space," was developed by Dutch traffic specialist Hans Monderman, and is supported by the EU.
■ UNITED KINGDOM
Debt woes on the rise
Calls to a citizens advice charity in England and Wales about problems with personal debt rose by 20 percent last year to a record high of 1.7 million, Citizens Advice said yesterday. The national charity said debt was now the No. 1 concern among callers, accounting for one in three of all phone calls to its offices. Of those calls, 40 percent were for credit card woes and problems with unsecured loans. The number of calls about bankruptcy jumped by 50 percent while problems with mortgages with secured loans rose 11 percent.
■ UNITED STATES
Craig files to withdraw plea
Lawyers for Senator Larry Craig filed court papers on Monday asking that he be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea to disorderly conduct in an airport sex sting. In an affidavit, Craig said that he was "deeply panicked" in the aftermath of his arrest on June 11 on suspicion of soliciting a plainclothes officer in a men's room at Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport and that, with an Idaho newspaper already investigating his sexuality, he signed a guilty plea on Aug. 1 to try to keep the arrest from being disclosed.
■ UNITED STATES
Man tries to cut off leg
A man awaiting trial on child sex charges in Arkansas tried to saw off his right leg in an apparent escape bid, police said on Monday. Days before he was due to appear in court on charges of rape and engaging children in sexually explicit conduct, Jerry Scholes sawed down to the bone of his right calf, just above his electronic tracking anklet, Detective Sergeant Doroteo Delacruz said. "If he had succeeded in cutting off the leg, he would not have set off the alarm on the monitoring device and he would have had 48 hours before anyone knew he had done it," Delacruz said.
■ UNITED STATES
Actress Wyman passes on
Jane Wyman, the Oscar-winning Hollywood actress who was late president Ronald Reagan's first wife and went on to star in the popular 1980s television drama Falcon Crest, died on Monday at age 93. Wyman married Reagan, who was also an actor, in 1940, but divorced him in 1948. She died at her home in Rancho Mirage, California, said William Morton, a spokesman for Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary. Wyman won an Oscar as best actress for her 1948 role -- played at the age of 34 -- as a teenage deaf-mute raped in Johnny Belinda, directed by Jean Negulesco. She was best known to a later generation of viewers as the tough, empire-building matriarch Angela Channing in Falcon Crest.
■ UNITED STATES
Killer escapes hospital
A confessed killer who had privileges to walk the grounds of the psychiatric hospital where he was being held apparently escaped with a backpack full of survivalist equipment, and police were searching for him. Authorities looked for William Enman on Monday near Ancora Psychiatric Hospital in southern New Jersey and other areas where he was thought to have contacts. Enman, 64, has been in state psychiatric hospitals since 1975, when he was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the killing of his roommate and the man's four-year-old son. He was found at the time to suffer from paranoid schizophrenia.
■ UNITED STATES
Old navy ship still of use
Many retired Navy ships have been turned into museums, but community groups in Hawaii are hoping for what military officials say would be a first: turning a decommissioned vessel into a floating homeless shelter. The 195m destroyer tender Acadia was built in 1981 and sailed around the world several times with a crew of 1,500 before it was decommissioned in 1994. In January, Navy officials decided to dispose of, sell off or give away the vessel, which is docked at Pearl Harbor. Most navy ships are used for scrap or training after they are retired. The Acadia Acquisition Committee is negotiating with the state for a place to put the ship.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was